Full name Darpan Inani Country India | Name Darpan Inani Parents Satish, Vimala Role Professional Chess Player | |
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Born February 14, 1994 (age 30)
Vadodara, India ( 1994-02-14 ) Title Bronze at World Junior chess Championship for blind (2013) | ||
Love for the game helps us overcome barriers - My Take by Darpan Inani, blind chess player
Darpan Inani (born 1994) is a prolific blind Indian chess player from Vadodara. He is the second highest rated blind chess player in India with an ELO rating of 2041 as of Oct 2013. He won the bronze medal at the World Junior chess Championship for the blind at Belgrade in 2013. He is also the youngest to win the National blind chess championships.
Contents
- Love for the game helps us overcome barriers My Take by Darpan Inani blind chess player
- Personal life
- Academics
- Career
- Film
- References
Personal life
He was born to parents Satish (father) and mother Vimala (mother). As a young boy who was 4 years old he was affected by the Steven Johnson Syndrome and lost his vision completely. He is an aspiring Chartered Accountant. He also plays the tabla and the harmonium.
Academics
He completed his entire schooling from a normal school Baroda High school Alkapuri. He was the only blind student there. Competing with the normal children, he seldom scored less than 90% and consistently scored a rank in top 3. He opted for commerce stream in his 11th std. Scoring 99.75 percentile in 12th std, he joined CA course. He has already cleared CA entrance and intermediates in first attempt and will be appearing for CA finals in November 2016. He completed his B.COM from Maharaja Sayajirav University. In 2015, he also appeared for CAT, an entrance exam for the most prestigious institute IIM, to pursue MBA. In his first attempt at CAT, he received calls from all the IIMs of the country barring IIM Ahmedabad. But finally, he rejected the admission offer from IIM Lucknow to pursue his CA first and chess career. He plans to apply for IIM later in his career.
Career
Darpan won his first open district tournament (under 14) at Baroda in the year 2005. He beat sighted opponents to win the title. He was youngest to win the National blind chess championships in Mumbai in July 2010.
He was the youngest to represent India at the World Blind Chess Championship in Serbia in 2010. He then represented India in the World junior chess championship for the visually challenged held at Rhodes in Greece in 2011.
Darpan won the Chennai Open Chess tournament in 2011. The Chennai Open had 300 players and he was only blind player in the fray. He wanted to prove that he could compete against normal sighted players.
He won the bronze medal in the World Individual Junior chess Championship for the blind and visually impaired held at Serbia in September 2013. He scored 6/9 along with Damjan Jandric of Serbia. He overcame Damjan in the tie-break to take the third position.
Darpan is coached by Mumbai based International Master Shekhar Sahu, who trains upcoming sighted and blind chess players.
Film
Darpan is one of the three blind chess players featured in the award winning Chess documentary film Algorithms directed by Ian McDonald. Algorithms is a documentary on little known sporting field of Blind Chess in India. The film features three upcoming blind players who they reveal their daily struggles, anxieties and hopes.